Life
1791-? [Miss Alicia Le Fanu; var. Lefanu]; gdg. of Frances Chamberlaine
Sheridan and niece of Alicia [supra], and of Richard Brinsley Sheridan;
dg. of Elizabeth Sheridan and Capt. Henry Le Fanu; br. of Philip Le Fanu;
published Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Frances Sheridan
(1824); she was known to be living in 1844, when Mrs Norton got her a
civil pension, as shown in the Le Fanu Papers at Cambridge [acc. Robert
Hogan]. DNB RAF OCIL
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Works
The Flowers; or, The Sylphid Queen: A Fairy Tale in Verse (London:
J. Harris 1809), 42pp; Rosara’s Chain; or, The Choice of
Life, a poem (London: M. J. Godwin 1812), 108pp; Strathallan
(London: Sherwood, Neely & Jones 1816), 4 vols. [I: 536p, II: 363pp,
III: 344pp., IV: 536pp.]; Leolin Abbey, a novel (London: Longman
&c 1819), 3 vols. [I: 395pp., II: 286pp,., III: 276pp.]; Don Juan
De Las Sierras: A Romance (London: Newman & Co. 1823), 3 vols.
[I: iv, 210pp., II: 212pp, III: 298pp.]; Tales of a Tourist (London:
Newman & Co. 1824), 4 vols. [I: 257pp., II: 268pp., III: 257pp., IV:
250pp.]; Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Sheridan, Mother of
the late Rt Hon R B Sheridan ... with remarks upon a late life of the
Rt. Hon. R. B. Sheridan; and also criticisms and selections from the works
of Mrs Sheridan; and biographical anecdotes of her family and contemporaries.
By her grand-daughter Alicia Le Fanu (London: G. &W. B. Whittaker
(1824), xi, 435pp.; Henry the Fourth of France: A Romance (London:
Newman & Co. 1826), 4 vols. [I: 231pp., II: 229pp., III: 240pp., IV:
226pp.]. (See Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic
Period, 1789-1850, 1980, Vol. 2.)
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Notes
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis
1912), gives no bio-dates; lists Rosara’s Chain [... &c.]
(1816) [sic]; niece of Alicia Le Fanu [b.1754] and dg. of Elizabeth née
Sheridan (wife of Capt. Henry Lefanu), the Sheridan sisters having married
brothers; O’Donoghue remarks that Webb and others are ‘hopelessly
wrong about the minor Lefanus’. SEE references in Life of Rv.
Charles Edward Herbert Orpen (1860). [chk: possibly refers to Alicia
Le Fanu 1754-1817].
Kith & Kin: A namesake, Alicia Hester Le Fanu, married William Dobbin, br. of Emma Dobbin, who married
Thomas le Fanu, f. of J. S. Le Fanu, in 1819; Dobbin was wounded in
the head during the Peninsular War, subsequently served in the Royal Irish
Constabulary and later suffered declining fortunes incl. spells in debtors’ gaol. (See W. J. McCormack, Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland,
Lilliput 1991 [2nd edn.], 1991, p.19.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)